"It is our firm conviction that the Savior, if he were still
on earth, would again align himself with the oppressed and against the
powerful of our age." Abraham Kuyper made this bold claim in his
newspaper on the eve of the general elections of 1894. What was the
issue that made him write this? Why did his fellow churchman and
political ally of many years, Alexander de Savornin Lohman, feel
compelled to write him that this statement had hurt him deeply?

The issue was whether to vote for or against extension of the
franchise. Kuyper was for, Lohman against. Lohman (1845-1924) was a
landowner, a jurist, and a member of parliament. Kuyper (1837-1920) was
a university professor, a newspaper editor, and the chairman of the
Antirevolutionary Party. The two men had fought side by side a decade
earlier in the battle over church properties that secessionists claimed
but that the national church held onto.

The question that now divided the friends had exercised the Dutch
parliament off and on for decades and had intensified greatly in recent
years. It all began when the liberal government introduced an electoral
bill regulating eligibility for the right to vote. Its sponsor, Tak van
Poortvliet, presented it as the definitive solution to a thorny question
that should once for all be put to rest. His proposal interpreted the
relevant constitutional provision with the greatest possible latitude.
Whereas the constitution spoke in general terms of giving the vote to
"all who possess the marks of capability and prosperity,"
Tak's bill translated this requirement into "all who are able
to provide for themselves and their household," with a last-minute
rider: "and who submit a hand-written application to be enumerated
for the voters list." The idea was that only illiterates and those
on poor relief would be excluded from the right to vote. If the bill
passed, it would probably enfranchise 75 percent of all adult males.

Lohman and nine other members of parliament, all belonging to
Kuyper's Antirevolutionary Party, considered the bill internally
inconsistent because it still included, albeit indirectly, a literacy
test. Although they were content that the right to vote was not linked
to an amount of taxes paid, as under the old census system, yet they
still had one major, overriding objection: the bill stretched the
constitution too far. It was, therefore, unconstitutional, and they
would not support it.

Kuyper, on the other hand, welcomed the bill as sufficiently
compatible with the long-held antirevolutionary preference for giving
the vote to all "heads of households." This was a golden
opportunity to gain seats in parliament for the lower and middle
classes, including the core of his constituency, the kleine luyden.
These "little folk"--tradesmen, shopkeepers, and farmers, whom
he had come to know during his earlier career as a pastor--deserved to
be heard in the body that debated the laws of the land. For twenty-five
years, he had pleaded that parliament become more democratic in its
representation. As for scruples against violating the constitution, he
was inclined to interpret them, so he wrote in a bitter mood, as purely
inspired by arch-conservatism aimed at torpedoing Tak's bill and
opposing franchise expansion indefinitely, if not forever.

This difference in appraisal marked a growing rift, not only
between Lohman and Kuyper, but also all along the ranks of the
antirevolutionaries. The Christian Social Congress of 1891 had eased
tensions between the left wing and the right wing of the party, but the
franchise question revived the rift in all its fury.

Lohman and his right-wing allies argued that the right to vote had
to be earned. Directly contradicting Kuyper's call in 1891 for an
"architectonic critique" of existing society, they stated that
responsibility for the widespread poverty in rapidly industrializing
Holland lay not so much with the structures of society as with sin and
ignorance on the part of the disadvantaged. Moreover, the logical
outcome of Tak's bill, they argued not incorrectly, could over time
only lead to universal suffrage, a development that they feared would
only foster an increase in demand by the lower classes for the material
goods of this world.

Unexpectedly, the issue would be fought out in an election
campaign. When an amendment to Tak's bill passed the lower house,
the bill was withdrawn, the government leader resigned, the House was
dissolved, and new elections were called. The ensuing campaign witnessed
what was for Dutch politics a most unusual alignment of political
forces, splitting each of the existing political parties, Christian and
secular alike. On one side were the Takkians, consisting of progressive
liberals, left-wing Calvinist antirevolutionaries, democratic
socialists, and a few Catholics; on the other side were the
anti-Takkians, consisting of conservatives, right-wing liberals,
conservative antirevolutionaries, and most Catholics.

The Antirevolutionary Party hastily organized a preelection rally.
In advance of that event, Lohman and his friends sent a missive to every
antirevolutionary voters' club in the land stating that no
antirevolutionary could in good conscience promote Tak's plans and
to vote for an anti-Takkian would be the right thing to do.

Party chairman Kuyper could not let this pass. He called the
missive a "fatal manifesto" and stated openly that perhaps the
time had come for the right and left wings of the party to go their
separate ways.

Two hundred deputies from voters' clubs across the country,
plus eight hundred others, attended the party rally. They debated a
resolution stating that the central issue of the campaign was the
struggle between, on the one hand, "conservatives of every
stripe," and on the other, the champions of "the people behind
the voters." Lohman protested from the floor, but Kuyper won the
day: the resolution passed by an overwhelming vote.

Lohman's group now formed a loose consortium of "Free
Antirevolutionaries." They went on to win eight seats in the
election. Kuyper's group won only seven seats, but its leader was
unrepentant. The split in the party had become necessary, he wrote after
some weeks. The battle is indeed against parliamentary
"conservatism of every stripe." Of the twenty members that sit
for Kuyper's group in the house, he pointed out, only nine are
commoners. The other eleven are men of noble birth, landed gentry,
millionaires all, who do not understand the real needs of the common
people--the "people behind the voters" whose socioeconomic
condition cries out to heaven. The eminent men are welcome to occupy the
main floor of the party as long as they do not disturb the house rules.
Furthermore, those rules dictate that antirevolutionaries are, and
always have been, Christian democrats on principle and Christian
democrats at heart. They, therefore, cannot but support proposals to
broaden the franchise. It is high time that parliament becomes more
representative and teaches government that it must protect the poor and
vulnerable in society.

Lohman meanwhile informed Kuyper that his statement about whose
side the Savior would be on had "irritated and aggrieved" him
deeply. Thereupon, Kuyper set forth what that statement was based on. It
was based on the indisputable evidence from Scripture, he maintained,
that Jesus invariably sided with the poor and vulnerable in society. The
Christian gospel is a double-edged sword: While it condemns the
"socialistic inclinations" of the poor, it also condemns the
"capitalistic tendencies" of the rich.

Kuyper's response was published in a series of ten articles
that appeared from June 18 to July 9, 1894, in his newspaper De
Standaard. By popular request, it was brought out in book form the
following year. The text, though marked by the limits and concepts of
its time, shows Kuyper at his best in a combination of his roles as
masterful religious educator and tribune of the disadvantaged and
disenfranchised. While he apologizes in the final article for the
strident tone of some of his writings during the election campaign, he
takes nothing back from his main contention that the "little
folk" Jesus associated with during his sojourn on earth may be
equated with the oppressed kleine luyden and the Christian workingmen of
his own day. Strongly contextual, his message nevertheless has universal
meaning and sounds uncannily relevant in the twenty-first century.

Shortly after finishing his series on "Christ and the
Needy" in the summer of 1894, Kuyper fell ill with pneumonia. Not
until January of the following year was he well enough to resume
work--"under half steam," as he announced.

His first editorial in De Standaard after his convalescence was a
lengthy peccavi. Kuyper explained that while on his sickbed he had come
to see that his writings during the election fever had been too bitter
in tone, "especially against those brothers who share our religious
starting point." His spirit had been too militant and not
conciliatory enough. On further reflection, he had learned to see merit
in the position he had fulminated against, and he now realized that he
had been too hasty in condemning it so harshly.

To be sure, he continued, his defense of franchise reform still
stood. Democracy was the wave of the future. It could not be stemmed,
but it could be guided into safer channels if more antirevolutionaries
sat in parliament. He was right in the franchise question last year, he
insisted, but not sufficiently on guard against mixing false and true
democracy. Our state is a constitutional monarchy, not a democracy.
However, our parliament needs to become more democratic by becoming more
widely representative. Whoever studies the social conditions among the
working classes will agree that they need their own voice in the
national assembly. That is why he, Kuyper, could not but favor the now
defeated electoral bill last year. Only thus could Kuyper and his
followers remain true Christian democrats. Government is called to
protect all its citizens but especially the most vulnerable among them.
The franchise simply must be extended to include as many citizens as
possible and not just the higher taxpayers.

Of course, he now recognizes, Kuyper went on, that his writing was
one-sided. There is a distinct shadow side to democracy. Everyone has to
be on guard against a kind of mob-rule that would reduce parliament to a
clearinghouse for material demands--always more material demands. That
side of the coin also needs to be shown, and Kuyper now proposed to do
so in a new series of articles under the title "Democratic
Shoals."

In this new series, which ran in nine installments that winter,
Kuyper elaborated on the dark side of democracy. Further
democratization, he set forth, hides six shoals on which the ship of
parliament might founder.

First, it could encourage the false notion of popular sovereignty.
The slogan "power to the people" is not wrong, provided people
does not stand for the lower classes alone but the nation as a whole,
and provided power does not mean the ability to wield governing
authority but the ability to check government, and if need be to correct
it and force it to abandon unjust measures by means of not approving its
budgets. However, the people's representatives must never try to
occupy the seats of government. The duality between government and
parliament--between ministers of the crown and representatives of the
people--is the safeguard against false democracy. Antirevolutionaries
are for government by the people (through elected representatives) and
for the people (through fair legislation), but not of the people.

Second, it might make politics serviceable to material interests by
having the government focus on providing "bread and games," as
in ancient Rome. Antirevolutionaries have to guard against the danger of
government's exhausting its role in paying almost exclusive
attention to the material aspects of life. That would be destructive of
the spiritual aspects of life and would lower our nation to the level of
a materialistic society.

Third, greater democracy might fan the flames of class antagonism
and pit the upper and middle classes against the lower class and install
a tyranny of the majority.

Fourth, democratization might play into the hands of demagogues and
open up political debate to incivility. Greater democracy--especially if
the social democrats vote shop floor stewards and union bosses into
parliament--runs the danger of eroding respectful manners, moderation in
speech, self-respect, and honor among parliamentarians. The lower house
of parliament might become the scene of shouting matches, insults,
invectives, even--look at Belgium, France, and America--duels and gun
fights! Today, courtesy and quiet modesty prevail, even during serious
debates between political opponents. If that is lost, well-mannered,
cultured people in the land will refuse to run for parliament, to our
detriment.

Fifth, it might facilitate the "domination of the absolute
word." By this, Kuyper meant what we call "sloganeering."
Democracy degenerates when solutions to the most intricate political
problems are reduced to catchy slogans bereft of all nuance and realism.

Sixth, a more democratic parliament could create a competitive
atmosphere in which class self-interest set the tone. A healthy
democracy, by contrast, balances the rights and needs of all classes.

At the end of this second series of articles, Kuyper believed he
had presented a balanced view of the need for democracy but also of the
shoals on which it could founder. Both series of articles, "Christ
and the Needy" and "Democratic Shoals" were published
together in one slim volume. In the preface, the author replied to a
pamphlet written against his first series; citing a few examples, he
argued that the pamphlet's exegesis of the relevant Bible texts was
a dismal failure. The publication did not have the desired effect of
luring the Free Antirevolutionaries back into the fold, but its dual
message guided Kuyperians for decades to come.

([dagger]) Conceived as a complement to our Scholia, which are
original translations and editions of early modern texts and treatises
on ethics, economics, and theology, the Status Quaestionis features are
intended to help us grasp in a more thorough and comprehensive way the
state of the scholarly landscape with regard to the modern intersection
between religion and economics. Whereas the Scholia are longer,
generally treatise-length works located in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries, the Status Quaestionis will typically be shorter,
essay-length pieces from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth
centuries.

Harry Van Dyke

Professor Emeritus in History

Redeemer College

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